


Panic on the Streets of Winterfell

by tastingvanilla



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastingvanilla/pseuds/tastingvanilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble, written as a personal writing exercise. Gendry Waters was not a baseborn son, but the first born of King Robert and Cersei. He doesn’t seem all that interested in being king, he’d rather be a knight, and so for the past several years he’s been in Winterfell, acting as a kind of squire to Ned Stark. He’s about seventeen when it starts, Arya is older than she would be, about fourteen/fifteen instead. Completely AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panic on the Streets of Winterfell

Ned and Robb have left for the Wall, a few days previously. Arya’s pissed off that her father didn’t let her come, it’s been almost two years since she last saw Jon, and she misses him like mad. Catelyn left for Riverrun a few weeks before, to visit her dying father, and the mood in Winterfell is a solemn one. In one of her lessons with Sansa, Septa Mordane picks up on Arya’s particularly foul mood, and suggests they go to the hot springs for a picnic. The weather has been particularly fine of late, Winter doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon.

And so they are all at the springs, Arya, Sansa, Septa Mordane, Master Leuwin, Bran, Rickon, Gendry and Theon. Arya soon gets bored of sitting around and walks to explore the woods, perhaps climb some trees, though that’s not very practical in the light summer dress she’s wearing. Septa Mordane and Master Leuwin allow her leave, as long as she has an escort, and she thinks Gendry’s company is the least repulsive, so she chooses him. They walk for a while, sometimes in companionable silence, sometimes with joking banter. They reach a small opening in the forest, filled with blue flowers, and Arya thinks how Sansa would love them. Sansa has been so sad lately. So she starts picking flowers, and Gendry starts taking the mick about how much of a girl she’s being. She tells him to get fucked, and he just laughs. ‘That’s no way to talk to your future King, girl.’ Arya throws flowers at him. And then a scream cuts through the silence of the woods.

‘Sansa! I bet Theon threw her into the pool.’

Gendry tells her to shush, they listen. Another scream. It’s obvious that there’s something wrong.

‘Come, make as little noise as possible. Let’s find out what’s going on.’

Arya complies, creeping back through the tree’s behind Gendry. He’s gone a little ahead of her, it’s hard to keep up when her legs are so much shorter and she’s wrestling with her skirts and branches. He disappears momentarily, and it’s then a hand appears on her mouth, and she can feel the sharp point of a knife on the small of her back.

‘You’re just who I was looking for,’ a voice says. She doesn’t recognise it, she struggles, the knife digs in deeper. She tries to scream but the hand is muffling the noise. 

‘You’re a pretty one, aren’t you? You hear talk of your sister, the finest thing in the North, she’s supposed to be. But you’re not that bad, little girl. You’re not bad at all.’ 

His hand creeps forwards on her dress and starts to unlace the ties at the top of her bodice. She tries to kick, but his legs are wide apart, she can’t get to him, and then all of a sudden, she’s free. She spins around, and Gendry there with a sword in his hand that he didn’t have before, blood all up front and the men who had been holding her lay on the ground in a pool of red.

‘Are you okay?’ He asks, glimpsing down at her exposed cleavage then flicking his eyes back up.

‘I’ll live,’ she replies. He hands her a dagger, and she thinks in that moment, she could kiss him.

They continue on, more cautiously this time, Gendry keeping close. When the wood starts to open up to the springs, there’s no one there. Arya rushes forward at the sight of Bran’s cloak discarded on the ground. The food from the picnic has been scattered and trampled. Sansa’s embroidery is covered in blackberry jam. She thinks she spies blood over on the ground by a tree, but she doesn’t want to think about it.

Panic rises up her throat. They need to get back to the castle. Stat.


End file.
